»No other group of people is so far from typography as illiterates.«

This sophisticated ‘two-faced’ book with a reversible cover deals with the challenging subject of illiteracy. One half of the book examines the subject from the perspective of design; the other half of the book illuminates the issue of illiteracy from the basic education viewpoint. To bridge the gap between design and basic education a group of experts were interviewed and a series of creative workshops brought together designers and literacy challenged individuals. The workshops delivered EIGHT new typefaces and EIGHTEEN styles. From these documents 34 designers from around the world created 56 unique typographical posters – with one poster per font being selected for reproduction in the print project.

The project was supported by Arthelps with paper sponsored by Metapaper – EXTRAROUGH White 350gsm (cover), 120gsm (text), 270gsm (inner-back) and 105gsm (poster), printed by Gilch and bound in Otabind with two inside brochures. Within the middle section of the book space was left for the folded typography posters.

The results, podcasts and information on the project can be found at www.illitera.de.